Getting Back on Your Feet

Several days ago, I wrote a short blog post about how I had to decide to start all over again after losing all of my first digital art works when my computer crashed. Some viewers asked me to tell more about this experience, so I decided to describe what happened in more detail:

Increasing your knowledge and learning new skills to make a difference in your world means that you have to set goals, and reach them. But even with the best plans, things go wrong. Very wrong. Especially when you’re learning something new. When I started exploring the world of color, design, form, and digital fine art, I was excited about every new discovery. The effects of transparency on color, and the use of gradients were particularly exciting. I kept copies of all my new artistic creations, and worked for hours everyday to make new digital paintings.

This was in the early days of Photoshop 3, so you know how long ago that was. Although I learned new things everyday, there were many things I did not know. One of the things I understood poorly was that you have to work within the space limitations on your hard drive. The hard drive on my tiny eMachine was only 2 gigabytes, which seemed like a lot of space at the time. But when you’re running more than one program and Photoshop is one of them, 2 gigs of space becomes very small. I removed unnecessary programs and files to free up more space.

Then one day, something very bad happened. My computer crashed. I called tech support, hoping they could walk me through a positive solution. Wasn’t gonna happen. The only hope of getting my computer to work again was to reformat the hard drive. Since I hadn’t backed up any of my files outside of the computer, all of my files were lost. Forever.

I was devastated. This was not a heated panic, but a cold calm realization that the this phase of the game was over. I grieved for my wonderful early work, in part because I felt that the joy of my discovery was embedded in them. It wasn’t long before I realized I was at a cross-roads. I could stop now, and say “Oh well that was fun” or I could continue to explore what I perceived as my gift. As a novice, I understood the amount of work and learning ahead. In many ways I felt as if I had to climb a very tall and steep mountain.

This is the point where doubt surfaced. Using the vernacular of Northeast Philly (it’s amazing how personal evil can get), the devil himself whispered in my ear: “Yeah, yous a one-trick pony! You’ll nevah pull outta this. Medicine is all you know and without it you don’t stand a chance. HaHa!”

I didn’t panic. Instead, I prayed and asked God for help, because He is the original artist. Without Him we can do nothing.  Despite my inward grieving, I assessed my situation with a nervous, cool but faith-filled eye, and decided that I would dive headlong into the millions of colors and artistic possibilities made available to me via software programs like Photoshop and PaintShop Pro. Without looking back (well not often anyways), my energy began to build, then finally the fever hit, and I sat at the computer for days on end, creating new work that I loved. I felt that the Lord had given me new focus. He guided my hand: “Use this color, now click this, put this over there,” said the still small voice. One creative door after another flew open. I was in another world.

This happened in the fall of 2001. One of the first works I completed was a digital whirlwind of autumn leaves. I called it “Autumn Confusion.” It is my tribute to how God inspires and empowers us to move forward, and transcend doubt. He uses our failures to propel us forward. Of course, I now work and back up in terabytes of space, cause “faith without works is dead” (James 2:14-26). So, here it is, once again, proof that God is the God of second chances: “Autumn Confusion.”

Until we meet again: “Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might!” (Ephesians 6:10). – Verneda (Twitter handle: @vlights) Continue the conversation on Facebook! © 2013 Verneda Lights. All rights reserved.